This project looks at the shifting of authority in the transatlantic literary field since the second half of the twentieth century. More specifically I wish to examine how the “humanities revolution” of the postwar period (the massive expansion of higher education between 1950 and 1975) and the rise of the American university to a center of a world system of academic production have affected the perception of literary value around the world. One of the larger questions is this: What does it mean for the cultural relevance of literature that aesthetic value seems increasingly defined by the sensibilities of an international “artworld,” the socio-professional networks of credentialed authors, cultural theorists, and literary critics whose prestige economies (literary prizes, canons, museums and sites of cultural memory) are largely defined within academic institutions?